In one of his lesser read books. Coleman Barks advises his translations of Rumi are not translations so much as paraphrases, all of which arise in his mind after hearing translations of Rumi by various Iranian friends over and over, and on occasion having some weed.

I find that to be similar, but not the same, regarding Thomas Merton’s “translation” of Chuang Tzu.

I point this out frankly to excuse myself for having made a similar inspired paraphrase (called paraphrased only to be generous to myself, and perhaps more aptly called mangled) using as basis a tweet by Pico Iyer, whom I have tweeted about my vain alteration over his original tweet. To date, he has not replied.

Here is the original tweet:

”The imbalance in so many relationships comes not because one party loves more, but because one reads the other so much more clearly.”